Croft’s (and other shippers’) Foundation Date

[JacobH]

I thought Croft was founded in 1678: a year which must have allowed them to produce a rather good 200th anniversary bottling, albeit at the expense of the 300th. I also thought Croft thought that they were founded in 1678. At least that’s what the big logo on their website says:



However, I noticed this morning, when picking up some more Croft 2004 LBV at Tesco’s (sale still on; buy all you can...), that the more recent bottles of this have a new foundation date: 1588. A quick look at the Croft website gives this new date in more recent press releases, too. Further investigation suggests that this new date only started to be used in 2008 when Andrew Jones’ ‟Croft Port: the book” was published. I haven’t read this (does anyone have a copy?) but http://www.infoportwine.com gives this quotation:

‟The story of Croft begins neither in Portugal nor with the Croft family. Perversely, it begins with the Thompson family, and it begins in York in the Armada year of 1588, long before Port wine as we know it featured on anybody’s table.”

(Thinking about this a bit more made me remember that Adrian Bridge had posted on about this a few months ago and there had been a few other news items when the book came out last year.)

Seeing that quotation did make me wonder this, though: at what point does at foundation date become simply too tenuous to be applicable to the modern Port shipper? I don’t think there is an easy answer, especially as most shippers were, until very recently, unincorporated partnerships, allowing (as appears to have happened to Croft) for the partners’ business interests to be traced backwards almost indefinitely.

It is also true that many shippers were not founded by the families who now have their names on the bottles. William Warre joined what is now Warre in 1729: 59 years after its foundation. Smith Woodhouse only gained the second name 34 years after its foundation when the Woodhouse brothers joined the partnership. Equally, many shippers did not start as wine shippers. Richard Mayson suggests that Graham’s only became a shipper after they were given some Port to pay for a bad debt.

However, most of them seemed to have at least a connection with Oporto or the main family which would run the business. I therefore wonder whether Croft is unique in looking to a non-wine, non-Oporto, non-family-name-on-the-bottle business for its foundation date?

Does any of this matter? Probably not. But it would be interesting to hear what others think of Croft’s move.

[DRT]

Jacob,

What you say is correct, these companies trace their existence back to well before they were port shippers or owned by the families that now give them their names. It seems to be a bit of a game between the companies to see who can find evidence of their existence back to a date before all others so that they can claim to be the oldest shipper. It's all nonsense really as they have now gone back beyond the point where port as we know it came into being. The fact that the ancestors of the poeple who first shipped Port had businesses that did other things is no great surprise and has no great relevance to the firms as they exist today. That said, I have spent countless hours geeking over Charles Sellers, Oporto, Old and New (1899) which traces each shipper of that time back to the year dot. It is fascinating to follow the links between all of the shipping companies through marriage and various partnerships.

Anyway, at the moment Croft have the bragging rights. But watch this space for the next shipper to hire a historian to dig through the archives of the 14th century to re-claim the prize

Derek

[nick]

does it not go back to Job Bearsley when Port became a sweet wine cause it did not travel well-I gotta brush up--somewhere around the time the Baroness Fladgate or was it Ferreira drowned while on a barco rebello which was navigating the famous Cacho de Valeira when the Douro River was not tamed-now I will go back and read and see that I have made a fool of myself with sorted facts-hi my name is Nick-have been into Port for a long time and this is prob the wrong place to introduce myself-Also I thought Kopke was the oldest firm?